Abstract:
From time to time, we are asked about the relationship between EJIL and the European Society of International Law (ESIL). That relationship is simple: the Journal and the Society are two separate, but mutually supportive and complementary entities. Indeed, past and present EJIL Editors can boast, with parental pride, of having been present at the conception, as well as the birth, of the Society! From its inception, membership in ESIL has included automatic online and print subscriptions to EJIL – including very soon a tablet version.The relationship has only strengthened in recent years, with ESIL Presidents and Presidents-elect serving ex officio on the EJIL Board. It is in the spirit of that growing bond that we wholeheartedly share in ESIL's 10-year celebrations, and have invited the following Guest Editorial from its leadership.

Abstract:
This introductory article opens the symposium which examines the legacy of the Russian international lawyer Friedrich Fromhold von (or Fyodor Fyodorovich) Martens (1845–1909). In the first section, the article critically reviews previous research and literature on Martens and discusses the importance of the Martens diaries that are preserved in a Moscow archive. In the second section, the article offers an intellectual portrait of Martens and analyses the main elements in his international legal theory as expressed in his textbook. In particular, his claim that international law was applicable only between 'civilized states' is illuminated and discussed.

Abstract:
This article concentrates on two controversial aspects of the writings of Friedrich Fromhold Martens – his treatment of the so-called mission civilisatrice of European nations and the potential clash of the two roles an international lawyer may have to perform: in the service of international law and representing national interests of his/her country or other clients. Both of these aspects in Martens' work have not lost their topicality; it is illuminating to draw parallels between his time and today's world.

Abstract:
There was an error in the title of this article. The correct title is: The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe – Standards and Impact. The title has been corrected in the online version of EJIL. The publishers would like to apologize for this error and for any confusion caused.

Abstract:
Building on the heightened attention that the optic of judicial selection receives in the world of international courts, this article focuses its attention on one particular criterion that is gaining in importance in that respect: gender. By choosing the European Court of Human Rights as a case in point, the article provides a unique analysis of the history of the 2004 Resolution of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly that formulated a rule of gender balance on the list of candidates presented by states for the post of judge at the Court. It first unearths the dynamics that allowed the adoption of the rule as well as all of the fierce opposition it triggered as well as the ways in which counter-mobilization eventually prevailed and watered down the initial rule, with the help of states, the Committee of Ministers and the Court itself (which delivered its first advisory opinion on the topic in 2008). It then looks beyond the static analysis of the rule as a mere constraint and addresses in a more dynamic fashion the multiple interpretations, strategies and, ultimately, politics it opens up. By providing a unique qualitative, comparative and exhaustive analysis of the curriculum vitae of all the 120-odd women who were ever listed as candidates to the Strasbourg judicial bench (1959–2012), the article delivers original data and analyses both the features that women candidates put forth when listed for the job and the strategies of states with regard to the gender criterion. It concludes that while there is a strong proportion of candidates that support the notion that states do not differentiate according to gender or require different qualities from men and women candidates, there is a comparable proposition that contrarily indicates that the world of international judicial appointments is far from gender neutral.

Abstract:
Having spent almost 14 years as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights, the author responds to and shares the critical view expressed by Hennette Vauchez in her article on the presence of women judges at the European Court of Human Rights. Some steps forward have admittedly been made through the voluntary action of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, but there has also been resistance in the implementation of these new rules. The gains are fragile and there are risks of regression. This situation confirms Kenney's analysis: women's progress is not natural, inevitable nor irreversible. A reaction is all the more necessary and urgent since, in the coming months of 2015 and subsequently, many elections of judges to the Court will take place, due in particular to the non-renewable nine-year term of office of judges introduced by Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Abstract:
This article responds to a thoughtful intervention by Stéphanie Hennette Vauchez documenting the selection process for women seeking judicial appointment to the European Court of Human Rights. Written in the context of the author's experience as candidate for appointment to the Court, the analysis concentrates on the gendered dimensions of international institutional cultures, habits and practices that frame selection to judicial office as much as any formally applicable rules. I explore the ways in which ostensible access to international judicial bodies conceals the manifold ways in which Courts are coded masculine, and how female candidacy requires careful deliberation on performance, presentation and identity. Drawing on 'new institutionalism' theory, I underscore that female presence alone rarely undoes embedded institutional practices. Rather, transforming institutional practices and values must parallel female presence, thereby redefining the institution and the forms of power it exercises. The article concludes by reflecting on the importance of feminist judging, and argues that it is precisely the transformative political and legal changes sought by self-defined feminists that may stand the best chance of undoing the structures, habits and practices that continue to exclude women from being appointed and from engaging on terms of full equality when they arrive.

Abstract:
Litigation concerning domestic restrictions on Holocaust denial has produced a 30-year-long jurisprudence of the European Court and European Commission of Human Rights. In spite of solemnly declared principles on free speech, the Strasbourg organs have progressively developed an exceptional regime in this regard based on the 'abuse clause' envisaged under Article 17. Had this detrimental treatment remained confined to its original sphere, it could have perhaps been considered as a negligible issue. However, the scope of the abuse clause was extended to encompass a growing class of utterances, including the denial of historical facts other than the Nazi genocide. This piece begins by examining the Strasbourg case law on Holocaust denial, with a view to enucleating the effects, scope and conditions of applicability of the special regime based upon Article 17. Once the shortcomings implied by this detrimental discipline have been exposed, it shall be argued that all expressions should be dealt with under the ordinary necessity test, in which the abuse clause ought to operate as an interpretative principle. In the alternative, and as a minimum, the Court should pay due regard to the political and social context of the country where restrictions on free speech were enforced, setting aside the uniquely harsh treatment reserved for Holocaust denial.

Abstract:
The orthodox view of the ECHR and its Court as regime in the context of both the EU and UK has been that it has considerable value albeit with systemic flaws. The purpose of this article is to challenge this orthodoxy. Four inter-related submissions are made: that the ECHR has failed human rights conceptually (1); 'good' or lauded decisions of the ECtHR cannot remedy or sufficiently counter-balance this conceptual failure (2); 'bad' decisions further expose and exacerbate the failure (3); the procedural problems of the ECHR regime may contribute to the underlying failure of concept but their resolution cannot solve it (4). These submissions are to provoke a more intense assessment of value and how such value could be enhanced. It may be too late to see any influence on the accession process but this does not reduce the relevance of the critique for the future of human rights in both the EU and the UK. Ultimately an approach to the ECHR system needs to determine whether it continues to be lauded or its influence resisted (thus seeking reform or replacement - the alternative candidates being the EU Charter and/or a national Bill of Rights) and retained only as an iconic scheme of moral importance.

Abstract:
This reaction piece responds to the article by Andrew Williams entitled 'The European Convention on Human Rights, the EU and the UK: Confronting a Heresy'. In his article, Williams contends that we should not further support the 'orthodox' view that the Convention (ECHR) has been very successful in protecting and promoting human rights across Europe, offering four submissions to that end. It will be argued that Dr Williams' submissions regarding the ECHR's success and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)'s role are not well supported and justified. The relationship between the ECHR and a future UK Bill of Rights will also be explored in the piece, as there is no sufficient link between the author's arguments about the ECHR regime and the UK legal system, making it rather artificial to refer to the UK as a possible model for human rights.